8 things that Microsoft needs to fix in Windows Phone 8 right now

With the release of BlackBerry 10 this week, Microsoft has even more fresh blood for competition in the smartphone business. While one could argue that it is still Android or iOS that Microsoft is up against, the picture painted for spring 2013 is one of stiff competition and a fight for the third spot.

Windows Phone 8 has made great strides in making Redmond’s mobile OS much better than its predecessor, most importantly with the new NT kernel which will allow Microsoft to grow the OS. Having said that, there is a lot of room for improvement and we’re not just talking about touch-up features either but core aspects that need to be addressed.

Below is a list of 8 things we think Microsoft needs to fix in order for Windows Phone to really take off. We’re confident Microsoft already knows about these and in fact may have solutions in the pipeline. At least that's the hope.

Before we start we should note that Microsoft is rumored to be revealing some new features coming to Windows Phone 8 next month in Barcelona.

Traditionally Microsoft has a rather large presence at the mobile-focused conference and their absence from CES in January sets up Microsoft to gain back some momentum in the press. We’re not 100% sure Microsoft will divulge an updated OS but we’re anticipating.

Now on to the list...

#1 Notification Center

Android, iOS and especially BlackBerry 10 all have notification centers, allowing users to have a unified single area to check the status of various apps and services. On Windows Phone, Live Tiles were supposed to be that but in reality, it’s not that simple. Whether it’s an optional blinking LED or making use of the left-area of the Start screen, Microsoft needs a simple and elegant solution here. Check out this great design concept from our forums

Rumor has it they wanted this for the release of Windows Phone 8 but simply ran out of time. Fair enough. But it better be there in the next update or it will continue to dog the platform.

#2 Universal Search

Likewise, this feature was rumored to be coming in either Windows Phone 7.5 ‘Tango’ or Windows Phone 8, yet this function mysteriously never arrived. It seems simple enough: Hit the Bing search key to make inquiries on the web as well as within the device. Search email, SMS, within apps, documents, etc.

It’s not a radical idea and other competing OSs already have this on board. In fact, Windows 8 has a nifty search feature, allowing you to dynamically search through various apps. It’s way overdue on Windows Phone.

#3 Instagram

Yes, we hate writing about it as much as you probably loathe reading it, but the fact is until this hipster service is on Windows Phone, it will absolutely prevent people from switching. We’ve had random conversations with Best Buy and AT&T employees and even a waitress who’ve all said the same thing: until this popular photo sharing app is on Windows Phone, it will always be a deal-killer.

For the record, Microsoft and Nokia know how important this is and we don’t think it’s from lack of trying that it’s not there. But there’s more to this than just throwing money at the Facebook company and while we don’t know the details, we’re sure there are talks of some sort going on.

Regardless, it needs to be here yesterday.

#4 ‘X’ to Close Apps

This one is so simple and yet Microsoft has yet to do it. In the card view of multitasking apps, just give us an ‘X’ to tap out an app.

C’mon Microsoft, the paradigm already exists with multiple Tabs in Internet Explorer—just extend it to apps. It’s simple to do and it will make many folks happy (even if it is arguably unnecessary).

#5 Better Xbox Gaming

We’ve been beating this horse for a while now (see our continuing series) but it does need to be mentioned again. Xbox gaming on Windows Phone since day one has been underwhelming.

It is embarrassing that Microsoft has not been able to fully leverage the Xbox 360 with Windows Phone in 2012 or 2013 and it needs to be fixed.

Just look at the video above of Microsoft’s Eric Rudder demonstrating the gaming potential between PC, Xbox and Windows Phone and the game ‘Indiana Jones’. We covered that story back in March 2010.—nearly three years ago--need we say more?

#6 Folders

Yup, here’s one that iOS and Android have given into and now have solutions for: folders. The idea being that some of us may have multiple media apps that we want grouped together, or a bunch of pins we want rounded up in a quick access folder. It’s a simple thing and becomes increasingly necessary as people add more apps, pins and tiles to their devices. Windows 8 makes use of “grouping” and Windows Phone needs to as well.

#7 Independent volume and profiles

Smartphones are called as much because they are supposed to be smart meaning we shouldn’t have to do certain tasks. Having our phones switch audio and notification profiles for home, work, movie theaters, etc. goes back to Windows Mobile and apps like PhoneAlarm. Why do they not exist on Windows Phone?

Likewise, let’s finally give users the ability to control the ringer volume independent of system/game volume, same with an easier way of going ‘silent’.

#8 Fix Xbox Music and Video

The whole three-screens-and-a-cloud vision only works if your media can truly transcend devices. Microsoft hit the reset button on their media services with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 and while there are to be expected growing pains, they really need to get that system on track. With the amount of DRM errors for music and the inability to watch Xbox Videos on our phones, it’s a real hindrance.

Hope for 2013

So those are our Top Eight major things Microsoft needs to sort out. Is that an exhaustive list? Certainly not.

Other features like the ability to force-check app updates, fix YouTube (perhaps out of Microsoft’s hands), a more powerful email client or even making Windows 8 gestures and Tile functionality overlap with Windows Phone to give users the same experience are all up for grabs.

Like we said, we’re sure hoping that Microsoft addresses all or some of these in the near-term, specifically in Barcelona. We have a feeling that they are and for the platform’s sake, they better. BlackBerry is now breathing down our necks and Android and iOS are so far ahead in the market it’s borderline scary.

Microsoft has a solid foundation with Windows Phone 8. Let’s see them quickly build on it.

Reader comments

8 things that Microsoft needs to fix in Windows Phone 8 right now

If not to the side of the start screen Daniel.... Another place should be in the Me hub.... There is a notifications page... Its should JUST be expanded in functionality..and the live tile can flash part of the text like it does it or better...

More customization. I also like the idea of saving different home screens. Xbox music. Give us the ability to add our own background art. Most of the music I listen to is not mainstream stuff so there is not art for them.

What is the problem with the app in te backstak?
Is unnecessary close that app, they not use system resource.
In the start screen I have all the notifications that i need.
All the notifications of Facebook, calls, messages, Twitter, mails, ect..., are on Live Tiles in start screen, so why you need another page where this notifications are duplicated?

Great article! You've really hit the nail on the head with the little things Microsoft overlooked in creating a compelling mobile OS. However, I feel there are a couple things that have to be addressed on top of everything else which I've listed below:

- Being a Lumia 920 owner myself, I do appreciate the uniqueness of WP but I find developers efforts on multiplatform releases to be severly lacking. Where Halfbrick has released multiple updates to Fruit Ninja on iOS and Android over the years, we have yet to see any of the additional features or updates (barring 1) on our own platform. Angry Birds Star Wars is on it's second round of updates and levels on iOS but hasn't been updated once on WP8. Microsoft needs to take this situation more seriously as consumers will soon find a lack of value for the apps they download on this platform compared to others as we're not seeing the same additional content for our purchases.

- Although I do appreciate the importance of Xbox Gaming on WP8, I feel it's becoming more of a barrier for the platform as regular release games on iOS and Android don't seem to be making the transition over to the platform unless Microsoft or Nokia offer an incentive like "Xbox Gaming title" or published by Nokia title. With development becoming more and more expensive, I don't blame developers for not taking a risk with the platform. Why would they when Microsoft is failing to create a compelling environment for Developers to thrive in? I'm not sure if Microsoft has taken the same stance as they do with XBLA and charge developers a ridiculous sum of money to put out updates but they have to be proactive and change the archaic publishing process in place on WP8 for the platform to stand any chance in the future. It doesn't look good either when apps published with the Xbox for Windows Phone banner end up with more bugs than regular "indie" apps do considering the xbox games go through a lengthier process.

Nonetheless, I love my Lumia 920 and WP8 but it's going to be a bumpy ride here on in if Blackberry does a better job in courting developers.

And with the general consumer in mind, I do belive Instagram launching on BB10 before WP8 could be the first nail in the coffin for the OS.

These may be introduced in WM9 to which your shiny new devices will probably not be upgradeable... The camera button missing was the reason not to upgrade WM6.5 to WP7? Now some Win7+ Lumias will not have a dedicated camera button and will happily run WP7, right?

Calling them 'folders' carries a bit of a stigma. The point is people want options in grouping certain apps together. Whether it's a folder like just in iOS or extra space between sections like in Windows 8 is up to the Windows Phone Design Team.

What some of you are forgetting is that Mindows MOBILE had folders along with many of the other "features" people love so much on iphones and androids. Windows PHONE is/was trying to get away from almost everything WM, despite the fact that the other OS's still copy it.

My Blackberry also had folders, Android has folders now too.
Lists like this get made because competing platforms have features that we don't have. The iPhone's notifications were garbage until they ripped off toasts and a pull down down notification center from the competition.
Nothing wrong with taking what works from the other guys and implementing it on your own system, as long as you don't get sued.

@skullbucket Exactly. Customizing the tiles to your prefernce eliminates the need to folders and other traditional app "list management" methods. If you go to the application list that frequently to start an app, it really should be on your home screen.
-m

How about Custom Hubs? We have Games all grouped together in hubs... when you go into certain apps (i.e. Music) you can see all the Music related apps. Why can't I just have a hub with all of the related stuff in it? I hate having to pin all of my things to the start screen - but when I want to find certain apps I have to scratch my head and remember what they're called or hunt around in the huge app list.
I would settle for being able to add a category or tag to the apps in my app list. Then at a press of a button I can only show the apps with that category or tag.

Inabilty to play wav files from email is stopping many enterprises from implementing WP8 because of inablity to play office voicemal from email attachments. Oddly my Samsung Focus S played them just fine.

The ability to play WAV files from email is very underrated, but hugely important for Microsoft if they want their phones to sell in the enterprise. Most of the large companies I've worked for use WAV files for audio email attachments.
And no, converting then hearing them, or somehow getting your giant corporation's IT department to change their policies, are not realistic options.
Ironically, WAV isa Microsoft-owned audio format (rolls eyes), so go figure.

Fix Volume now! I just missed a call...
But for the rest of fixes I understand the Windows Phone, curren notifications in tiles, no need for file/folder system (use skydrive for that), no need to close apps because you have resources to maintain apps open, WP has those and other proposed fixes with a different point of view...
The universal search including local and also your personal cloud (skydrive) will be better than the current independent search.
Instagram and other apps willbe great too, but I don't know if that depends on MS...

What about people who do not like SkyDrive? What about sensitive documents you do not want, you are not allowed, yes there are laws and regulations about it, to send to SkyDrive? What about working when you are for ten hours on a plane?
Skydrive is not the Holy Grail and there are a lot of people, me included who do want to have their documents right there without the need of more or less available, fast and reliable connections.
The bottom line is that there is not a solution that satisfy all, therefore a great OS has to be flexible to adjust and cover different needs.

These items are simple and straight forward but how long will it take MS to implement them? If past record is anything to go by, we'll probably get a bunch of other features no one has asked for or thought of before we get all these basic ones. That's MS' usual m.o.!!

#9: STOP ABANDONWARE
Some 7.5 apps still don't work for 8 months later (Spotify...hello?!?!). Angry Birds Star Wars is now TWO level updates behind iOS and Android. Games exist for WP8 and then disappear from the store.
It's great to chase big names in apps like Instagram. But having a STABLE up-to-date app store is even more important because it keeps the tens of millions of users you already have happy.
And why is Windows RT getting apps that aren't being migrated over to WP8 and vice versa?

#10 YOU HAVE THE ECOSYSTEM, MICROSOFT. USE IT.
Raise your hands if you can buy/rent any sort videos from the native "Music+Videos" hub. Yep, you can't even browse videos. It says connect to your computer to add videos. Really? Xbox is the number one console yet none of its gaming properties are really leveraged for WP8. Skype is still sketchy. What good is it having all of these pieces if you can't put them together?

Thanks, there seems to be so many reason not to buy a MS smartphone - Android is getting better all the time, MS is... weird. The prices, the lack of functionality and debatable quality of hardware, e.g. poor battery life... WPhone for hundreds of bucks? No, thank you! There are better options.

OTHER FOLDER - The Other folder needs a purge method. It is literally swallowing my phone. Up to 7.5 GB, and I have barely 1.5GB of apps, maps and media files. I add 100 MB of files to the phone, storage capacity goes down by 100MB. I delete them, storage capacity goes down by 10MB. Everything creeps into Other.
This is a huge problem. By far the biggest problem with the phone. Hard reset isn't a viable solution. There are hundreds of complaints on MS' message boards about this issue.

I think the multitasking should have had a way to close out apps since Mango gave that support. Also why not more than 5 apps in multitasking? I mean my Pre- can run 35 apps while overclocked to 1GHZ and switch as I want. MetroRadio disappears from the list after a while and you need to restart it to change playlists. Either throw the cards(as initially planned) or at least a massive X on them. Save your battery.
Horizonatal lock should have been applied to the Quantum since day 1. Pop out the keyboard and use the screen the RIGHT way like Android does. Wtf right?
I want xbox gaming but I dont see it happening. I see too much latency over even wifi to control your xbox and rely on the phone being perfect. Its a good thought but I dont see practical. I use it for netflix and videos using the now apparently fixed Smartglass and that works for me.
I would like Pandora...deal breaker for friends of mine, Hanging with friends(love it), Yahoo Messenger(not im+...sucks), and overall better skype...its rather lame and weak at times.

I really see the potential in Windows 8 / Windows Phone / Xbox, and if Microsoft doesn't make it into a very good ecosystem (by adding all the small, but important features which are currently missing), I will be VERY pissed off!

"Ecosystem" is becoming one of the most over used, and misunderstood terms being thrown around recently.
Please name another OS who has a trully better, not kinda better, not a list of "oh they have this", but TRULY better than what MS has built so far.
And when you do, please make sure you put SkyDrive in there too.

It techincally works, it has some serious usablility issues.
Try to fast forward to the 2:00:00 mark on a 3 hour mp3. It's a long time of pressing and holding. What makes it tough is ocassionally the UI loses focus of your hold event (often after 27 seconds of scrubbing forward) and scrubbing stops. Try to resume scrubbing with another "press-and-hold" but then WP interprets it as a skip event, fastforwarding to the next song. Oh is that frustrating.
If WP could "remember play back position" on my MP3s, the fastfowrading UI wouldn't be as big of an issue. My use case is I'll drive to work listening to a lecture. While I'm at work, I'll listen to other mp3s or streaming radio. After work, I want to resume the lection so it's time to fastfoward back to my spot on the lecture.

COMPLETELY AGREE!!!!!!!!!
These are a summit of what we said back in august!
We need VPN too and many more basic features (pictures lock screen, more IE10 UI improvements, custom sound for email and sms!!!!!!, connection toggle, backup of app data, etc etc)

Backup for sure, I did a reset for my L710. It would be nice when you log back into your phone , you would be presented with your app list and begin downloading/installing. I checked my app list with my account and it was incomplete and a mess.
Also i had too relink all my contacts, that was a mess too. So if they can make that experience better for anyone reseting there phone or maybe moving to a new WP, i would be very happy. If all this changed with WP8 , thats news to me. Then i guess it would be time for an upgrade.

Love the article and I absolutely agree about the Xbox music and video problems (putting it lightly). I have an 8x, Surfact RT and Xbox and they do not play together easily. I'd just like to throw my streaming video from my phone or Surface onto my TV but Xbox doesn't seem to let me. If there's an easy way to do that, without plugging my device into my TV or Xbox, please let me know. Fixing the ease of use for the three screens would be great. My other issue is I don't see why I should be paying Microsoft $60 a year to buy content from them. Thank goodness the YouTube app works...for now.

I actually bought SOME of the battery apps.. they say periodic check of battery usage will DRAIN the battery, so they might want to approach withi this carefully.. and that the OS limit the percentage showing only 99% tops. Strange, I know!

Microsoft has alot of potential in wp, it's just never been realised to it's best.
There are a couple of things if done right can be so amazing, things that the design of the OS was intended to do from the start.

In addition to everything Daniel mentioned in his article, i really really want the following:

#1 MS needs to use the messaging hub! BBM on BB10 runs circles around the wp messaging hub. And with the discontiuation of msn, what function does the hub have now anyway? FB Chat only? The hub is such a great idea if done right. MS should provide third party access to the hub for all major chat providers. Firstly PUT SKYPE CHAT IN THERE! having to open the skype app every time to reply to a message is rediculous, skype needs to be integrated to the messaging hub. Provide access to 3rd parties, whatsapp, kik, etc etc, should all be able to use the messaging hub, Dramatically increasing the usefulness of this feature, which is what it was intended to do. (This also applies to Windows 8)

#2 you should be able to easily switch between active chats in the messaging hub, swipping right/left in a chat currently does nothing, how usefull would it be, if those cycled between active chats!

#3 Skype needs to be baked into the people hub, i know this is planned, and was there previously, but they need to get this whole skpye thing right, and fast! Personally i hate the Skype client, on both desktop and wp, Live Messenger's interface is 10 times better. I understand the need to have a seperate app for easy updates, but geeze the client sucks. Much like xbox music, both windows 8 and wp8 clients suck, Zune was way better.

WP8 has so much potential, and i love using the platform even with the shortcommings listed by Daniel, Myself and Others here. So if microsoft were to get serious about this thing, and get everything right, it will be a truely brilliant platform.

Anyone know what im suppose to do when Live Messenger is gone? i rely heavily on this for pc and phone, having to rely on skype chat in it's current form is going to be a nightmare!

Yes!!!! When MS said wp8 was going to have Skype baked into the OS that's what I assumed, c'mon ms, you own Skype and don't own fb?! Surely something is amiss here, a major company that isn't owned by you in msg (not complaining about that but lack of Skype is annoying please fix!)

I do agree. The browser is good but needs work. Go to Best Buys site and try to use a drop down menu on a Lumia 920 or otherwise, it doesn't work. Other sites have the same problem. When you tap on a drop down menu it flashes and then disappears before you can make a selection.
Also, stronger html5 support, etc.

Yes! This would be number one for me. I am thinking about going back to Windows Phone 7 just because of this. A lot of the podcasts and playlists I had in Zune are just not possible or very hard to do without Zune.

Agree with most. They can utilize more icons on the top bar where wifi icon, battery icon are. So much room for more notifications.

Hopefully they add full notifications to the me tile that would be the best, one hub to rule them all. Let us see a portion of the text, twitter update, fb update, email up to certain character amount, click to go to their respective apps.

Also, the live tile should shuffle between most recent notifications. For example, if there is a text and my message icon is in large tile size, i can only see the last text, perhaps shuffle the last 3 -5 texts every 5 seconds if it is left unread.

More streamlined way to add contacts easier.

Allow to attach videos from the email app instead of having to go to the photos hub and sharing. Should be able to do it both ways. Attaching multiple files at once would be nice, dont think that is possible now.

Rotation lock

universal search i agree with

PUrchasing and watching videos straight on your phone. Sync up with other devices.

One more thing, integrating skype fully into the OS without an APP. Skype messenger on your messaging app fully features, skype video calling option in your phone app similar to facetime on ios. Skype and WP8 OS needs to be one, no seperate app. Integrate AAALLLLL!

HD Video out. Can I please attach more than just pics & vids in email. I need to be able to send/receive pdf's and other file types from my PC & load to my pc. Just a better file management system. My $0.02.....

Very true, and I did know that. Just that my phone is my primary/only internet source, other than WiFi like at the laundry or McDonald's. I'm on the waiting list for DSL in my current area, and only get 2G, (0.12mb) down... Yay. :( I need to send dwg's, tiff's, midi, etc... I would just really enjoy a bit more usage. A sandbox where these files can be placed and accessed for transfer. Don't want to open them on my phone.

Wow - missed some big ones. I need Adobe Acrobat a lot more than Instagram. And how about the inability to play voice mails from many phone systems? Does folders cover off the Other Storage problem? Good if it does - that's huge.

OTHER needs to be fixed before anything. Other is making my phone terrible. It is a leviathan that grows daily without changes to the phone, currently occupying over 50% of the phone's usable space on a 16GB 8x.
Pdf is an important but distant second.

That "OTHER" is a mixture of apps and app data that they for some reason decided was the samething as docs and such, so they just decided to put it all in one pot called "OTHER". If you have a lot of apps that stor data (ie: games like Angry Birds, PvsZ, Arcane, etc...) you're going to blow through your storage and it will only show up as OTHER in Zune or WP8 app, whatever it is you are using. They definately need to rewrite that to give you a better break down of usage.

I don't have a lot of apps. Storage just dissapears. I install 100 MB of files, remove them, and I lose 90MB of space. I do nothing, space leaks out. I installed maps that took 200MB. I started to run out of space and removed them and got back 30MB.
There is no way to purge it without doing a hard reset of the phone. There are hundreds of complaints about the issue. This is on MS, not me.

The music app definitely needs help. How about the ability to create playlists, or add to playlists... Other than just "now playing". Also, whatever happened to the ratings on my music? I rated thousands of files over the years for a reason, and the phone can't even use them.

What do you mean by spam the back button?
Press and hold the back button to get to the task list. Select the app that you want to close, then press back to close it. I don't see anything wrong with that. With the 'X' to close the app, you still have to get into the task list, to select that app also, then click on 'X' to close it. Both are still two steps.

Try going to internet explorer and surf for a bit. Everytime you hit the back button it just goes to the previous page. Will not close the app until you've gone all the way back to the page you started on. Holding back then having an immediate way of closing it would def be handy. I know its not like this for all apps but there are enough it'd be worth it in my opinion.

So true. When I'm ready to exit IE, I just hit 'Tabs' and x out all of the tabs so that I can get out of IE quicker. Hitting back takes too long, and I'm sure the vibra on the back button contributes to my battery drain.

I agree. Mobile office is way to watered down to do anything productive on the go. It would be great to have an in phone file structure like Wmo to have a file tree structure for when Skydrive isn't accessible (no singnal/airplane mode).
I have tried to work on or edit my office files on Skydrive though my mobile web browser (desktop mode / Lumia 920) and I can only work in Excel (Excel is just in the past week). Other OS's have great 3rd party office software that Microsoft has to beat period. I don't like to be beat out on something that should be native and superior on WP. Don't get me started on multiple file attachments for e-mail. Aaarg.
I love my WP. It is the best OS but as Dan pointed out with his points, there are some glaring holes.

100% agree with this. My surface RT receives notifications all the time whereas my 920 misses some Messenger and most Facebook notifications. They seriously need to hire some better testers in the Windows Phone division, sort out all the bugs before adding features. Stop wasting resources on apps for other platforms, fix your own problems first!

Honestly the whole functionality on WP8 is good, may need some added functionilties to make it better. But man this OS needs an aesthetic make over and pronto. The look of the OS can get boring at times, and the people behind BB Z10 knew this and I can say the BB 10 OS is very soft to the touch. .
Maybe MS should Start with making the Tiles look 3D or have it look like it's popping out of the screen.

Your opinion is subjective and so are mine, but again sales figure show WP platform isnt take off as they would like and it's pace to mobile dominance is far to non. A sleek and elegant interface is what I think will kick Windows Phone to over drive.

You and I will agree, that yes it will need more apps and a broader ecosystem to have better succuess, but truefully. Think about sales figure, market growth and per usage.
My mom, boss, friends, average folks who use Smart Phones are all iPhone owners. Half of them don't know jack shit about the copy and paste or even load up safari yet they have an iPhone. why you say? well it's because it's nice, easy to the touch, elegant, It's smooth. I seriously think half the people who own iPhones only use it to talk and take pictures and nothing else.
Serioously I hate to use an apple slogan here but really, "Think Different."

Oki, I'm sorry, but if you are comparing IOS interface aesthetics with WP aesthetics you are just tacky. Your Mom as mine have an Iphone because they are the nugatory users.
They trust more than anyone oin the peer to perr inbteraction and they are the last adopters of any technology, also the ones that would buy most expensive stuff believing it is the best stuff.
Nothing personal but this is the rank they have in marketing theory. Windows Phone does not care about our moms becaus ethey will adopt what we tell them to adopt when is ready for them. Windows have to worry about people in their late 20ties and early thirties that are the earlya dopters thus they have the money to try new technologies, and over all has to worry about teens, late lteens are the tech savy group and the one that will mark the succes of a platfform, if they use it the platform will succed.
It has been shown first with the Iphone and secondly and overall the turn down to Android was teens convincing everyone that it was a cool system. It might sound sad but they are the ones who decided if something is cool or not and then society adapts to it.
Sid this, lets talk about design, in 2007 Iphone came with a new system that at that point was nice and fluid it was well done and easy to use. As they added more features it became more and more difficult, half of the features are hide somewhere, later on they started to add stupid useless features, I don't know any Iphone user that does not have a folder full of crappy useless stuff that never use and they can't erase).
The system became less and less reliable and less and less fluid, stetically did not change or adapt to the new current on the market so it looks old and really tacky, you have to relly on the search buttom because it is actually caothic and impossible to customize to your necessities. Plus Apple skeumorfism, base your digital design in real life objects, like the agenda on IOS, that looks like a real paper agenda is Design Terrorism, something it was already tacky in 2007, but by them we had not other sytems to choose.
As you said most things in design are subjective, but IOS has become objectivelly in the platfform no one wants to get inspired on. I'm writing you from a macbook air, but I work in digital design and really no one in digital design wants to copy that crab.

I've had most of the platforms out there...if you don't like the look move from the platform...it won't change...its their bedrock look across multiple platforms now...and its sick! Sorry...but of its boring to you then off you go.....however...a larger spectum of colors would be epic...only feedback I'd have on the look

Agreed... Out of all suggestions i read here.along with installing apps to sd card...those 2 suggestions were truly stupid.... The look of the OS is excellent... There is just a huge need for added functionality as the article pointed out...instagram is last on my list.... I'd add deeper Skype integration

When you listen to an album that goes seamlessly from one song to the next (like a live album) there is a slight pause. Gapless playback means that there is no pause between songs. If you like to listen to albums (instead of individual songs) it is a critical feature.

Especially annoying if you listen to continuous mixes and live sets. Imagine a DJ pausing for 1 to 3 seconds when switching between tracks. That moment of silence is jarring especially when the next track starts with the last few notes of the previous one.

Allow apps to be installed to the SD card. Barring that, at a very minimum, apps need to be allowed to store certain types of data to the SD card.
I can currently only store 1 Audible audio book on my Lumia 810. I also only have my state installed in Navigon. I tried Nokia Music and the offline mix would only save to the built in memory.

Installing apps to the SD card is a very bad idea for any device, (security, corruption of settings, slow, just to name a couple) The option to save music, videos and everything else is already a feature.

You can't save music from Nokia music and probably any other music app directly. Storing that data as well as maps and audio books is absolutely needed. It would fairly trivial to handle the data not being on the SD card.
In any case, I bought quite a few apps on WP7, but won't be buying any more for WP8 since I am out of space. Maybe if they get the "Other" storage area under control and slim down the OS, but not now.

Personally, I'd be satisfied with a quick way to make a call to a specific contact. Right now you have to enter the People app, swipe a few times to all (if it first displays their social updates), then search. I really miss on the old school WM6 where you could just start typing and select a contact. There's no equivalent tile I can put on the home screen that would allow me to just start typing and up pops contacts. Basically all i need is a shortcut tile to the search field in "All" in the People hub.

Either they won't read it or won't do anything. Some of these complaints have been since pre-Mango. If they didn't care then, why would they care now? Either that, or they are that worried about making sure to keep a grasp on people, they are purposefully leaving out much desired functions. It is a pretty typical business move. Don't play all your cards and promise these features in future updates. That people who like the OS, but get frustrated with the lack in functionality hang on, even if it is just small bread crumbs with each update. Pretty much like what WP8 is. Bread crumbs. If you want to argue that it wasn't...I kindly suggest you ask yourself why this article would have been written if the update brought the features we wanted.